What the Women of Maine Have Done”: Women’S Wartime Work and Postwar Activism, 1860-1875

Maine History Volume 48 Number 1 Maine and the Civil War Article 5 1-1-2014 “What the Women of Maine Have Done”: Women’s Wartime Work and Postwar Activism, 1860-1875 Lisa Marie Rude Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal Part of the Cultural History Commons, Social History Commons, United States History Commons, and the Women's History Commons Recommended Citation Rude, Lisa Marie. "“What the Women of Maine Have Done”: Women’s Wartime Work and Postwar Activism, 1860-1875." Maine History 48, 1 (2014): 86-109. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/ mainehistoryjournal/vol48/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maine History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “WHAT THE WOMEN OF MAINE HAVE DONE”: WOMEN’S WARTIME WORK AND POSTWAR ACTIVISM, 1860-1875 BY LISA MARIE RUDE Maine women had been active in reform movements during the antebel - lum era. They joined mother’s associations, temperance groups, aboli - tionist societies, and woman suffrage organizations. Although the Civil War did not create activists, it did strengthen them, while opening the door for other women to become activists. The war provided an unprece - dented opportunity for the women of Maine to be actors in the public sphere. Postwar women’s movements in Maine were therefore fueled by their agency on the home front during the war. The author is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maine, working under the supervi - sion of Dr. Mary Hough. In 2007, she received her master’s degree in women’s history from Sarah Lawrence College, where her research cen - tered on how Betty Ford refocused the American perspective on the First Ladyship. Her current work at the University of Maine examines the sources of influence on the First Lady, and the nature of power and poli - tics. ARS OFTEN have unintended consequences. Begun in April 1861 as a war to preserve the political union between the Wnorthern and southern states, the Civil War ultimately trans - formed American society in a number of ways. The relationship of the states to the federal government, the place of African Americans in American society, and the labor system in the South were all changed by the war. Women’s rights activists also called for change. Just as African American men helped their own cause for civil rights by fighting in the war, many northern women hoped their wartime efforts on behalf of the Union would lead to citizenship rights. As the Portland Daily Advertiser noted in a July 1862 article entitled, “What the Women of Maine Have Done,” Maine women Maine History 48:1 January 2014 Women of Maine have yielded up loved ones sufficient to meet the calls of the govern - ment, and will continue to do so. They have worked for the sick and dying; they have given from their often scanty resources, to add com - forts to the camp and the hospital; they have prayed and wept for their country; they have sent their hearts along to the battle-field with their heroes, there to keep them, while a northern soldier sweats and bleeds beneath a southern sun. 1 As the article’s title made clear, the women of Maine had done quite a lot to preserve the Union. Many Maine women hoped their efforts would reap rewards after the war. Women’s historians have debated the extent to which wartime work fostered the growth of women’s activism after the war. 2 Certainly one of the leading suffragists of the nineteenth century thought that was the case. According to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Civil War had “created a revolution in woman herself, as important in its results as the changed conditions of former slaves.” 3 In Maine, the Civil War provided an un - precedented opportunity for women to be actors in the public sphere through activism, volunteerism, and wage labor. Women supported the Union war effort in a number of ways, both public and private. During the war, many Maine women worked outside of the home by forming soldiers’ aid societies, by caring for wounded soldiers as nurses, or by filling in for male relatives at factories or stores. Women also expanded their domestic roles while their husbands, brothers, and fathers were away at war. Wartime work gave women in Maine a view of life beyond their traditional sphere. Whether or not they had been engaged in benevolence and social activism work before the war, women’s work during the war strengthened their resolve to engage in such forms of ac - tivism after the war. Postwar women’s movements in Maine were there - fore fueled by their work on the home front during the war. Women’s Roles and the Cult of True Womanhood in Antebellum Maine In the early nineteenth century, American society was transitioning out of the Revolutionary period and into a new, changing, and often- contentious era. In this new era, ideas about women and their role in the new country shifted. Women were now held up on a pedestal, and char - acterized as passive, submissive, and the moral guardians of society. This characterization was known as “true womanhood.” 4 The notion of true womanhood proposed that a woman’s place was in the home; as such her political role was limited to raising virtuous and patriotic sons. Ac - cording to historian Mary Beth Norton, “Women’s domestic and mater - Maine History nal role came to be seen as so important that it was believed women sac - rificed their femininity if they attempted to be more (or other) than wives and mothers.” 5 As a Hallowell newspaper noted in 1843, a woman’s “highest ambition was to secure, as her husband, some indus - trious young farmer, and . make him a good wife.” In reality, though, women were not all the “precious porcelains of human clay” that society thought them to be. 6 Despite this ideal of domesticity, many antebellum women were en - gaged in public life, through either benevolence work or wage labor. Re - garding the latter, many middle- and working-class Maine women found work in the new textile factories in New England. 7 Regardless of contemporary norms, increased production in textile mills across New England opened spaces for women to join the work force, either out of need for wages or to escape farm work. Young female workers were often sought by New England factory owners in the early years of industrial - ization. Women and girls could be paid less than their male counterparts – often a fourth or third of what men made in similar occupations. 8 Thus, women provided factories with a steady supply of cheap labor. In addition, these young women were likely to marry and leave the factory for their husband’s home after a few years, thereby (in theory) avoiding the creation of a permanent proletariat class as had emerged in indus - trial centers in Europe. 9 In the 1830s, women and girls represented a majority of workers in the emerging textile industry in New England, and as late as 1850, were about a quarter of the manufacturing labor force in the United States. 10 Maine factories, including those in Saco, Portland, and Lewiston, advertised for women workers in the antebel - lum years. “Wanted, six or eight good coat makers and several girls to learn the trade,” went one 1848 notice in the Maine Cultivator & Hallow - ell Gazette. 11 Regardless of their social class, women shared in the same experi - ences of being confined, by virtue of their gender, to social and cultural strictures of the early nineteenth century. Yet, there were real differences between the lives of working-class and middle-class women. As historian Sara M. Evans has noted, “Most working-class women paid little heed to the canon of domesticity. It fit too little of their reality to prompt any de - sire for emulation or conformity to its tenets.” 12 A growing middle-class of women could afford not to work wage labor jobs, nor did many par - ticularly want to do so. While working-class women often labored out - side of the home, most middle-class women did not. Even if they wanted professional careers, well-educated middle-class women found them - Women of Maine selves excluded as a result of new professional licensing practices. 13 Above all, society told them they were supposed to be the ones who, as historians Edward O. Schriver and Stanley R. Howe put it, “looked after the needs of the family and provided moral training for the children. As guardians of society’s more refined virtues, they were supposed to ex - hibit piety, purity, submission, and domesticity.” This construction of “woman” prevented women from seeking careers or entering politics. 14 Yet, some middle-class women took on other public roles. Although many women accepted their roles in the domestic realm, the narrowing of “proper spheres” caused discontent among a growing number of educated middle-class women. Many of these women took their business skills into the field of benevolence work. Early benevo - lence workers began as economic, social, and educational problem solvers in their own communities. 15 Class and social background greatly determined what type of benevolent work a woman supported. Al - though antebellum women engaged in benevolent work, it was viewed as sentimental rather than invigorating. Unpaid home labor was seen as a leisurely activity; thus women “naturally” engaged in private home work. By contrast, wage labor was typically seen as an expression of manliness, intellect, and social bonding.

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